The physical forms of drinking vessels – whether we’re swigging beer straight from the bottle or carefully pouring champagne into our finest special-occasion flutes – play an unusually important role in our cultural perceptions of what we’re sipping on. They can also be the physical manifestation of a brand – something we can literally hold onto, connect with and feel close to. In a world of the digitally ephemeral, they offer literal, tangible brand salience.

There is an opportunity for drinks brands (particularly alcoholic) to employ glassware to create fundamental distinctiveness and embed deeper cultural meaning into the brand. To paraphrase Jenni Romaniuk from the Ehrenburg Bass Institute, who has written extensively on the power of DBAs: distinctive brand assets matter – but distinctive cultural assets matter even more.

Here we will look at three brands which have leveraged this to their advantage and uncover the semiotics behind their success.

The Champagne Moment of Aspall Cyder

Aspall has leveraged two parts of P&G’s well-known Moment of Truth framework through both bottle and glassware to transform a mainstream category product into a more premium proposition.

The bottle – redesigned around 7 years ago – is the star of the First Moment of Truth; “the moment a consumer chooses a product over the other competitors’ offerings.” With its long-necked, elegant form enabling it to stand out on shelf amongst a sea of stouter, beer-like cans and bottles, Aspall captures our attention. The cider category at large is essentially coded as ‘beer that tastes of apples’, but Aspall breaks this mould. It does so by offering a bottle shape, logotype ‘twist’ (the use of a ‘Y’ not an ‘i’ in Cyder) and label design mirroring the wine category, and language linked to wine or even champagne (Premier Cru cyder anyone?).

The second moment of truth – the consumption moment – is where glassware comes into play. Aspall has referenced this in a recent campaign, reinforcing the associations they set up at point of sale, and creating a continuum of cultural meaning between the bottle and the liquid product by showing the latter being poured into a champagne coupe.

Here, its meaning is cemented not as ‘beer that tastes of apples’, but as a premium crafted beverage for elevated moments and even celebration. A suggestion of change in how the drink should be served – and the glassware that signals that serve – brings about change in how the brand is valued. That distinctive yet culturally meaningful form brings more than just stand-out but also an ability to re-frame the idea of an entire category. By using the champagne coupe in its advertising, Aspall shifts ‘cider’ from an association with beer at the ‘ordinary’ end of daily pub drinking, to an association of ‘cyder’ with fine champagne. It creates cultural associations with luxury lifestyles, continental travel, glamour, and sophisticated hedonistic pleasure far from rural Somerset.

Aperol: Glassware for New Aperitivo Moments

Similarly, Aperol, the globally successful aperitif, showed how brands can create enhanced meaning through glassware, to create a new and culturally relevant spin on a traditional consumption moment.

Serving the product in a wine (or balloon) glass was a relatively new idea when Aperol adopted it. Campari began doing so in branded wine-style glasses when it acquired the brand, and while there are practical reasons behind the choice (space for ingredients and ice in the large bowl, while the stem keeps you from warming the drink while you hold it), the distinctive shape also symbolises openness, generosity and sophistication through its wide mouth and delicate stem. Its oversized wine-glass shape reminds us of more sophisticated drinking and makes it clear that you’re drinking an aperitif (not, say, a garnished Irn-Bru). Meanwhile, it leaves plenty of space for the bright orange liquid to shine through, capturing its distinctiveness from other elevated alcoholic options.

The distinctiveness of the product has led the serve in the wide, stemmed glass to become a cultural symbol in itself: bright orange-coloured liquid served in a rounded bowl, symbolises the setting sun, and is synonymous with leisure, sociability, sunshine and European summery ease. Effectively, it has become a shorthand for aperitivo time. Aperol’s choice of glassware, then, both draws on longstanding cultural meanings and creates a new one, all while offering distinctiveness for the brand.

Stella Artois: Glassware as Reputational Repair

Both Aspall and Aperol may well have taken their inspiration from a previously successful example of new glassware successfully transforming the fortunes of a brand. Stella Artois was a hugely successful brand in the 1980s and 1990s that continued selling well into the early 2000s, but had begun to suffer from an image problem. While it had become ubiquitous across UK pubs, its “Reassuringly Expensive” premium positioning, represented in a well-known above the line campaign, was no longer working to communicate premiumness, and in fact the slightly stronger beer had become associated in casual conversation with a socially detrimental form of toxic masculinity.

However, when the brand shifted its marketing to emphasise its serve in its now instantly recognisable Chalice, rather than the classic straight pint glass, the whole drinking experience was reframed, and the beer coded as a refined continental ritual. Even though not all pubs adopted the new glassware, the recognisable and culturally relevant vessel became embedded in consumers’ memories and changed the mental image of the brand in line with these renewed premium connotations.

At the time, few beers were served in anything other than a standard pint glass in the UK, which meant that the Chalice created powerful distinctiveness for the brand. It turned a mainstream lager which had accrued negative cultural values into a genuinely salient premium brand which was authentically different within a highly commoditised category. By adopting the Chalice, Stella Artois aligned itself with European (specifically, Belgian – as per product origin) drinking rituals, and the brand was able to leverage its heritage to introduce a distinctive cultural asset into the lager category that transformed the way consumers thought about the brand.

As a testament to the enduring (and international) appeal of this new positioning, a recent campaign by David in the US and Chile highlighted the desirability and distinctiveness of the Chalice through tongue-in-cheek references to how often it is stolen from bars and pubs. The campaign featured imagery of the Chalice in aspirational modern interiors and alongside other elevated glassware, reinforcing the idea that the vessel – and therefore the product and brand – belongs in premium spaces.

(Source: Famous Campaigns)

In each of these examples, we have seen how glassware is much more than just a functional vessel for liquid or even a tool for bringing out tasting notes and product quality – it’s an opportunity for brands to leverage and create profound cultural meaning, and to differentiate themselves while building culturally resonant stories.

While distinctiveness for its own sake can feel gimmicky, when glassware, as a physical embodiment of the brand’s values, aligns with culture, it can also help achieve strategic aims while communicating in a way that resonates with consumers. Don’t (just) be louder, be culturally legible – and for drinks brands, the tangible glass is filled with often untapped latent cultural power.

 3 Key Takeaways for Brands:

  1. Glassware can reframe or confirm meaning: changing up the vessel can help consumers rethink how they see your brand (like for Stella Artois), or strengthen messaging already set up by other assets (like for Aspall).
  2. Meaning can be created through distinctive glassware: owning a shape that resonates and provides distinction can help your brand own/become synonymous with a moment and a category (e.g. Aperol).
  3. Cultural relevance is everything: for all these brands, combining distinctiveness with strong cultural legibility has been the key to success, and glassware has been a key agent in the process.

Sophia Lucena Phillips, Project Director, & Alex Gordon, CEO

Glassware: The under-used moment of consumer truth